From yesterday: When we become bogged down or defined by our contempt we’re suggesting that we believe fairness was, at some point, a possibility. We’re believing a very tempting lie. When we become defined by our contempt (that life has not been fair) then we’re not living in reality.

The solution is not so simple as just becoming mentally stronger or more stoic or through having more self-will or some such thing as this. And, I’m not suggesting that it is easy to cope with the curve balls life has thrown. It can be, and often is, truly devastating. We need to sit with that disappointment, it does us no good to say, “We should have known better.”

Understanding life’s unfairness is not the same thing as suggesting it does not matter or that we should suck it up. It must be dealt with. That can take a long time. Hell, it can take a lifetime.

I do not know if there is such a thing as a “solution”- but I do have a thought. We need to consider the fact that we still have a life ahead of us- even if we feel horribly broken and ill-equipped to face it.

Because we have a life ahead of us, we should consider whether or not we have any influence over what it looks like. Granted, there are always things we can control and things we can’t control. Life sometimes continues to throw curve balls while we desperately hope for a change-up to give us a bit of a break.

So, we must ask, does our contempt serve us well moving forward? Will it allow us any kind of quality of life?

I humbly suggest it does not and will not serve us well. The question is, what do we do about it?